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The caladrius, according to Roman mythology, is a snow-white bird that lives in the king's house. It is said to be able to take the sickness into itself and then fly away, dispersing the sickness and healing both itself and the sick person. The caladrius legend formed part of medieval bestiary materials, which typically provided a Christian moralization for the animals they discussed.
It has been theorized that the caladrius is based on a real bird. Due to descriptions of it being completely white with no black on it, it is possible that it was based on the dove, or possibly some sort of water bird such as the heron. The art historian Louis Réau believed it was most likely a white plover. [1]
Medieval interpretations focused on the diagnostic potential of the bird: if it looks into the face of a sick person, the person will live; if it looks away, the person will die. [2] This is compatible with the idea that the caladrius' look draws the sickness into itself; the bird is then said to fly up to the sun, where the disease is burned up and destroyed. In the Christian moralization, the caladrius represents Christ, who is pure white without a trace of the blackness of sin. [3] The bird shows how Christ turns away from unrepentant sinners and casts them off; but those to whom he turns his face, he makes whole again. Sometimes this moral is used specifically against the Jews to describe how, because the Jews did not believe, Christ turned his face from them and toward the Gentiles, taking away and carrying their sins to the cross. [4]
In the Saturday Night Live sketch, "Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber", the title character (played by Steve Martin), uses a caladrius (portrayed by a live bird, most likely some form of dove or pigeon) in an attempt to diagnose a patient. The difficulties of using live animals on live television provided most of the humor for the few seconds of the bird's appearance. [5]
In the video game Age of Mythology: The Titans , a myth unit available to the Atlanteans is the Caladria, which serves as a flying scout and healer, though it more closely resembled an angel than a bird.
A song dedicated to the Caladrius ("Pasărea Calandrinon") appears on the album "Cantafabule", released in 1975 by Romanian rock group Transsylvania Phoenix .
Caladrius is a demon in the Megami Tensei video game series.
The Japanese light novel Redo of Healer mentions it as a monster which is considered a God by a demon race tribe. It has the power to devour diseases and also spread them.
In Hollow Earth (2012), by John and Carole Barrowman, the first book of the Hollow Earth Trilogy, the caladrius is a mythical bird that can see the future.
Caladrius is the name of a minor character in the video game Dragon Age: Origins . He is associated with a plot that involves healers addressing a mysterious new plague actually using this as cover for their illegal slave trade in stolen "patients".
In "Brute of All Evil" by Devon Monk, a doctor is a caladrius. She takes human form and serves as the town's supernatural doctor as well as taking care of humans.
Caladrius birds and their medicinal uses are an element of the novel Just Stab Me Now by Jill Bearup.
The capture of the rare mythical bird as part of a Birder of the Year competition serves as a major plot point of the 2024 historical romance novel, The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Romance by India Holton. [6]
A bestiary is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson. This reflected the belief that the world itself was the Word of God and that every living thing had its own special meaning. For example, the pelican, which was believed to tear open its breast to bring its young to life with its own blood, was a living representation of Jesus. Thus the bestiary is also a reference to the symbolic language of animals in Western Christian art and literature.
Christian mythology is the body of myths associated with Christianity. The term encompasses a broad variety of legends and narratives, especially those considered sacred narratives. Mythological themes and elements occur throughout Christian literature, including recurring myths such as ascending a mountain, the axis mundi, myths of combat, descent into the Underworld, accounts of a dying-and-rising god, a flood myth, stories about the founding of a tribe or city, and myths about great heroes of the past, paradises, and self-sacrifice.
Chinese mythology is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature throughout the area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology encompasses a diverse array of myths derived from regional and cultural traditions. Populated with engaging narratives featuring extraordinary individuals and beings endowed with magical powers, these stories often unfold in fantastical mythological realms or historical epochs. Similar to numerous other mythologies, Chinese mythology has historically been regarded, at least partially, as a factual record of the past.
The yale or centicore is a mythical beast found in European mythology and heraldry.
The peryton is a mythological hybrid animal combining the physical features of a stag and a bird. The peryton was first named by Jorge Luis Borges in his 1957 Book of Imaginary Beings, using the fictional device of a supposedly long-lost medieval manuscript.
A legendary creature is a type of fantasy entity, typically a hybrid, that has not been proven and that is described in folklore, but may be featured in historical accounts before modernity.
The Icelandic Physiologus is a translation into Old Icelandic of a Latin translation of the 2nd-century Greek Physiologus. It survives in fragmentary form in two manuscripts, both dating from around 1200, making them the earliest illustrated manuscripts from Iceland and among the earliest Icelandic manuscripts generally. The fragments are significantly different from each other and either represent copies from two separate exemplars or different reworkings of the same text. Both texts also contain material that is not found in standard versions of the Physiologus.